


The Boy Who Fell Into The Sky

by TheVagabondBoy



Series: Despicable [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: -Ish, Alternate Universe - Space, First Meetings, Kinda, M/M, Malnutrition, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Space Pirates, Starvation, Stranded, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, idk what tags should be here, tell me if i missed smth lol, the beginning of a big adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 06:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20092753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVagabondBoy/pseuds/TheVagabondBoy
Summary: Bucky Barnes just wants to scavenge spaceship-wrecks and get a nice payday for it. He really wasn't planning on finding a survivor on his latest wreck.





	The Boy Who Fell Into The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> i blame the peeps in the CapBB discord for encouraging this lol (but legit tho, thanks for the cheerleading, i love u <3 )
> 
> beta'd by betheflame, and you can find her on [ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame) and [twitter!](https://twitter.com/betheflame1)
> 
> big thanks to her for the help! <3

Alpine thrummed. It was white-noise in the back of Bucky’s mind. He was so used to it, that whenever he left Alpine, he was irked at the silence crushing in on him. It was just a comfort. The noise meant he was at home, in a ship that he owned, where no one had a right to tell him shit.

In the void of space, the noise was all that kept him alive.

Well, the noise, and the ship that _made_ the noise.

Bucky swiveled the Captain’s chair around, turning to the communication panel. No emergency beacons in range, nothing on the scanners… Everything was quiet. Perfect, that gave him time to catch some sleep.

He opened the star map and set a course. He was in the outer band of the Viridian solar system, just past the asteroid belt. He plotted carefully to make sure he avoided drifting into the belt, though, taking into account the gravitational pull of the dwarf planet just on the other side of the same belt. He’d be speeding towards the neighbouring system, Vermilion, but also made sure that Alpine would set a drifting orbit a good distance away from its last planet. The feds, SHIELD, were always trigger happy in that kind of system; the higher class ones, where all the _rich people_ lived.

He configured the scanners too. If anything fitting into any kind of ship category, with little to no engine activity, appeared on the scans, the computer would alert him. He’d hate to miss a big score.

After that, he switched on the cruise control and got up. Bucky could hear his bunk calling his name.

*

He threw the wrench with an aggravated the shout, metal clanging against metal as the tool bounced off the wall and hit the floor.

Fuck...

Steve really wished he knew more about spaceships.

With a heavy sigh, he grabbed his shirt from where it hung over an unusable lever and shuffled out of the engine bay. He'd try his hand at it again in a while. For now, he needed to eat something and get some rest.

The walk to the helm seemed longer by the day. He was getting weaker. Soon, he wouldn’t have the strength to keep working on the engine. He hoped to God he could get it operational before then.

He had to shuffle along the walls to stay on his feet. Fuck, the energy just seeped out of him.

Steve curled up in the Captain’s seat once he got to the helm. He wrapped himself tight in the blankets he’d dragged over from all around the ship. He’d have to cut down on all non-essential systems to conserve power, which meant the temperature was _just_ above habitable. Luckily, he’d sealed off most of the ship after scavenging through it; once he grabbed everything he needed, he sealed the doors shut and cut power to all the sealed rooms. No need to waste power on those places, since he wasn’t exactly using them. The only places left with atmosphere and heat were the cabin and the mechanical bay, as well as the shortest path between the two. That was all he needed.

He ate a third of a ration pack. That was the bare minimum needed to survive. He’d have another third tomorrow, and the last the day after. He had enough food left to last him another two weeks, and enough processed water to last another week after that. Beyond that… Well, he hoped he’d have the engine working by then; at least enough to get him closer to a system.

If he just got _close_ to a system, someone would pick up the emergency beacon. He just had to get close enough.

*

Bucky jerked awake at the sudden shrill cry of a scanner alert.

He groaned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then rolled over onto his side. His tablet lay on the floor by the bunk, on top of the pile of clothes he had discarded. He leaned over the edge of the bunk and tapped at the tablet screen. Let’s see what the scanner picked up…

Cruiser class ship? Hm, that was kind of unusual. Those were never really _abandoned,_ in his experience. The company that owned them usually went out and towed the monstrosities back to orbit so they could undergo repairs; it wasn’t cheap, but it was cheaper than getting a whole new one built. Damn. No engine activity, small power consumption, emergency beacon active, scanners hadn’t been able to pick up any life signs.

Well… Maybe the damn thing was just too damaged to bother repairing? If the damage was too big, it price of repairs could come to outweigh the price of a new model.

But there wasn’t any major damage detected… That was strange.

Still, it was a _cruiser._ Even if there wasn’t anything special to grab, the parts he could strip out of the engine and the consoles could fetch a good price.

_Screw it,_ he was going for it.

He dragged himself out of bed to start getting ready for the excursion.

Half an hour later, he was ejecting the drop ship from Alpine, zooming towards the cruiser.

The whole thing looked dark. No lights, no flashes at the thrusters. Looked abandoned, alright. He flew around the cruiser to the dock port and took good care in lining himself up. The docking procedure was quick and easy; his clamps had to do all the work, as the cruisers systems were shut down and unwilling to accept his request to dock.

He got up and put on his helmet, then double checked himself. Suit pressure nominal, oxygen tanks full, magnet boots engaged, tools and weapons strapped to his belt, hover cart waiting by the hatch.

_Alright, ready to go,_ he though to himself.

He depressurized the drop ship, then opened the hatch. The cruisers hatch was still sealed, though. It only took him a few minutes with the laser cutter to break it open, thankfully.

Bucky turned on his helmet lights as he stepped onto the cruiser, as well as his the flashlight built into the suit on the back of his right hand. The dock area looked clear enough. He activated the hover cart’s _follow_ protocol and started moving, the cart close on his tail.

“Alpine, play me some music,” he said, already beginning to feel bothered by the silence.

_“Copy that,”_ his ship’s computer replied and his favorite tunes started playing through his earpiece.

He encountered the crew quarters first. There, he was able to plug his suit battery into the door consoles and override the locks, saving him from having to cut each and every single door open one by one. Instead, he only had to plug a cable into the console and remote unlock it. Saved him some time.

Hm, the quarters were…surprisingly empty. No personal affects left, no clothes, the beds were unmade, _nothing_ left behind. Weird. Whatever happened to this ship, it looked like everyone on-board managed to evacuate before they lost atmosphere. Good for them, he supposed.

He moved on to the passenger quarters, which were a little more upscale. A little classier. Yeah, obviously this thing ferried some pretty wealthy people from one planet to another. The story was pretty much the same there, though. He found scraps of clothes, a few mismatched pieces of forgotten jewelry, a couple tablets, a watch, just the usual person items. Nothing sensational, but he could still pawn it all off. Even the clothes, since they looked to be made out of some swanky materials. _Someone, somewhere,_ would want it, he was sure.

On the restaurant level, he found a stash of wine bottles. Looked like a good few vintages. He could thaw them out, crack one open to see if it was still drinkable, then sell the rest. Even if it wasn’t drinkable, the glass compound the bottles were made of could be recycled with a junker. He ripped a few lithium bars out of the appliances in the kitchen, and dug some steel and aluminum utensils out of the cabinets and drawers, and some ceramic plates and shit. He even managed to rip some copper wire out of the walls, even if he had to cut through the panelling to get to it.

After that, he headed down to the machine bay. That was probably where he’d make his biggest score. The copper wire _alone_ could set him up good for a while. Not to mention the power cores!

As he reached the last door separating him from the machine bay, his suit computer stopped him, an alert beeping in his ear and flashing on the small interface screen on his left forearm.

_Atmosphere?_ What? There was atmosphere beyond this door? That didn’t really make sense. Why would there be atmosphere there, but nowhere else? Hm… It could be the engine, he supposed. He’d heard of a few instances where a change in atmosphere, or a loss of it, could disturb the function of the engine, even if the engine itself wasn’t fully operational. If he vented it, whatever dregs of fuel were left could become unstable; might even blow up. Best not to risk it.

He went back and sealed the other doors to the small hallway he was in, making sure there were no leaks. He interfaced back with the machine bay door, and through it into the cruiser’s computer system, where he switched on the venting in this hallway. He watched the meters move on the screen, as the space slowly became pressurized and breathable.

Once the meters were in the green, he unlocked the door. Though he would have liked to remove his helmet, it was best not to. He didn’t have the scanner capabilities to check the air quality. If what drove people to abandon the ship was some kind of airborne toxic or disease, he’d be screwed. The helmet stayed on.

He climbed down the steps to the engine. Like most cruiser models, the engine only powered the thrusters and the FTL, while the power cores acted as batteries to fuel the rest of the ship and systems. It was weird, though. There were already parts stripped out of the engine, while all the power cores were still mounted in their places. And the stripped parts weren’t even that valuable! Only an idiot would take those and leave the cores. Everyone knew the cores were much more valuable. It was almost like they’d done it solely for the purpose of crippling the ship, making it impossible to get the engine back online.

Bucky didn't know what the hell the person who did it had been thinking, but he figured he might as well be grateful. More cores for Bucky to take, right?

He grabbed the multi-tool off his belt and got to work on the engine. Might as well take whatever was left too, right?

He had barely touched the wrench tool to a nut, before the sound of door clanging shut made him jump. He cut the music. Bucky hooked the multi-tool back onto his belt, grabbing his pistol instead. He tapped the interface on his left arm, engaging the speaker at the front module of his suit, on his chest.

_“Who’s there?!”_ he shouted, his voice carrying through the speaker in the now pressurized and oxygenated room. “Just come out with your hands up, and I won’t fire!”

Static brushed the air, the ship’s intercom speakers crackling. “Yo- You lower the weapon!” a man ordered back at him. “O-Or I’ll vent the whole machine bay! Float you out! Dunno how long the oxygen packs on that suit’ll last, but I’m p-pretty sure it ain’t long ‘nough to get rescued!”

_Fuck._ He was right.

This guy obviously had control over what remained active of the ship’s systems, so he was likely at helm. If he wanted to, he could vent the whole ship, save for the helm, and blast Bucky right into space. And yeah, Bucky had his suit, but that didn’t ensure that he’d survive the speedy and, no doubt, tumultuous trip through the bowels of the ship. He’d probably get banged up enough to kill him in no time. He didn’t really have a choice.

_“Okay!”_ he surrendered finally, raising his hands. “I’mma put the gun down, yeah?”

“Do it!”

Bucky lowered himself slowly, until he could place the gun on the floor.

“There. Happy?” he asked.

“No. B-But I guess it’s enough,” the voice said.

The voice was quivering, shaking. The person, a man by the sound of it, sounded…weak. Tired.

“Who are you?” the man asked Bucky.

“Bucky Barnes,” the scrapper replied, then shrugged as he continued. “I’m just a scavenger, man. Saw a dead ship, figured I might find somethin’ worthwhile. Didn’t even know there was anyone left!”

“There isn’t.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed. What the hell did that mean?

“Just me.”

Oh.

“You’re alone?”

_“What’s it to you?”_ the voice spat.

“Calm down, alright? I ain’t here to hurt nobody! But from the state’a this engine, you ain’t goin’ nowhere, okay?”

“Wh-What? What d’you mean?”

Bucky had to shake his head to himself. “Someone stripped the engine. Without spare parts, no way you’re gonna get it runnin’ again. You’re dead in the water, man,” he explained.

“O-Oh… I-I tried, but-… I couldn’t- It didn’t, didn’t work.”

“Yeah. Don’t feel too bad, I guess. No mechanic could get this gal workin’ again without those parts.”

“I see.”

Bucky swallowed. _Goddammit._ “How ‘bout you come with me, yeah? I’ll take you on my ship, bring ya to the closest planet, get you some help.”

“I don’t- I dunno…”

“You got two choices, man. Either you come with me and get to safety, or you stay here and slowly starve to death on a dead ship. I know what _I’d_ do if I were you, anyway.”

"How d-do I know you wo-won't just kill me if I open the doors?"

"I guess you don't. But whatever you decide to do, I'm gonna strip this engine for what's left since it clearly ain't doin' anyone any good anyway. And hey, I'm a decent guy. I'll even leave ya with a power core. Oughta last ya ‘til after you've already starved to death."

Bucky picked up his gun again, trading it out for the multi-tool and getting to work on the engine like he'd planned on.

For a minute, it was quiet.

The doors clanged as they unlocked again.

He didn't leave the machine bay until he’d finished off the engine and grabbed the cores. The ship switched to emergency power, which should last a few hours; long enough for them to get the hell off that wreck, anyway.

"I'm at the helm," the voice told him, speaking again for the first time. "I... I dunno if I can walk very far."

Bucky sighed, but started walking. It wasn’t a far walk. Before long, he stood at the sealed helm door. He lifted his hand and banged on the metal.

He had to wait for a moment, but at long last, the door slid open for him. He raised his hands quickly when he saw what stood on the other side.

While the clearly malnourished man wasn’t particularly intimidating, he still had a gun. Looked like a standard cruise-liner security staff weapon. Just a small pistol. The man was shivering, teeth clattering, even while wrapped in a good amount of blankets.

“Hey,” was all Bucky could really think to say. “You wanna hop in the cart so we can get goin’?”

The smaller man looked around Bucky to see the cart, which was loaded with junk by then. He looked back up at Bucky. Finally, he tossed the gun haplessly over his shoulder.

“Ain’t even loaded,” he muttered.

He tried to shove past Bucky, but there wasn’t much strength left in him. In no time at all, a coughing fit overtook him, making him sag against the door frame. Bucky, decent guy as he was, gently grabbed the man in the hopes to keep him on his feet, at least. Finding the guy to be pretty damn light, Bucky opted for physically _picking him up_ and depositing him in the cart. The guy pulled his blankets tighter around himself even as he continued to cough.

Bucky stepped into the helm. Hm, he’d thought about taking apart a few of the consoles, get his hands on some good components, but with this sickly guy sort of depending on him now, he decided against it. A few computer chips and wires and shit weren’t worth _that_ much.

He grabbed the blankets left in the Captain’s chair, though, and tossed them to his new passenger. The guy mumbled out a low _thank you._

*

Alpine’s medical bay got little use, but Bucky tried to keep it stocked. Never know when you’re going to need it, right?

After removing his spacesuit, he lifted the guy, who said to call him Steve, onto the only bed in the medical bay. He dragged the thermal blankets out of storage and draped them all over Steve, piling chemical heat-packs in between the layers to get him warmed up. It took some arguing, but he was allowed to put a drip in Steve’s arm to get him some fluids and nutrients. Steve complained about the small portion of food he was given, saying he ate more when he was stranded, to which Bucky reminded him that after starvation, it was best not to over-eat and shock the body, instead slowly escalating the portion sizes. Besides, Steve was getting all the nutrients he needed through the drip.

“Alright, we’re just on the edge’a Vermilion,” Bucky said, noting how a slight look of panic filled Steve’s face but choosing to not say anything about that _just yet._ “-so I’mma radio in to SHIELD, let ‘em know I picked you up, and figure out where to drop ya off. You just…rest. I guess.”

He started walking away.

He was _just_ on the threshold, when Steve spoke up.

_“Wait!”_

Bucky stopped. He turned on his toes.

“What?”

“I-… D-Do we have to go to Vermilion? Can- Can’t we go somewhere else?” the sickly little guy asked. “Like… Avenger Station? I-I-I’ve got friends there!”

Bucky furrowed his brows and crossed his arms. _Something_ was going on.

First of all, why the hell was Steve the only survivor left on an abandoned ship, with an engine that looked deliberately sabotaged? Second, why was he so reluctant to go into Vermilion and get handed over to SHIELD? Third, why the hell were those dumb, big, blue puppy eyes actually making Bucky consider making the trip to Avenger Station, which was halfway across the galaxy from their current location?

“M-My friends, they can pay you!”

Bucky inhaled a deep breath.

Fucking Christ…

“How much?”

“What?”

_“How much_ would your lil’ _friends_ pay?” Bucky questioned bitingly.

“Whatever you want! Please! I-I-I need to get to Avenger Station. You _can’t_ take me into Vermilion.”

“Why not?”

“Because-… Just _because_, okay?!”

_“No!”_ Bucky shouted.

He crossed the room with quick strides, until he stood over Steve.

“If you wanna go to Avenger Station, you tell me _why!”_ he shouted at the man. “Or I’ll dump ya off in Vermilion and move on with my damn life, right? _Make up your mind.”_

Steve stared at him. His big, blue eyes were filled with fear, but there was something else there too. _Defiance,_ perhaps? Something told him Steve would’ve been happy to scream right back at him, if he’d had the strength for it. Hell, looked like he might do it anyway, malnourishment be damned.

_“Because SHIELD are the ones who left me to die on that cruiser.”_

It wasn’t shouted; his voice wasn’t raised at all. The restraint, the effort he took to keep from shouting, was obvious in his face. Bucky could see the anger and fear, and that same hint of defiance too.

“SHIELD did that?” Bucky asked with a scoff. “Why the hell would they do that? They’re the feds! The cops! Why the hell should I even believe a word outta your mouth, if you’re startin’ off with _that_ kinda bullshit?”

“It’s not bullshit!” Steve erupted, finally letting his voice be raised.

But that only brought out a wheeze in his chest, and another coughing fit to steamroll over him. Bucky hurried to help the man onto his side, just to be safe. If the violent coughing triggered him to vomit, it was better it ended up on the floor.

He waited as Steve coughed, let him fight through it. Once it had calmed down to a wheezy breaths and throat-clearings that sounded a little slimy, Bucky got him some water. He had to help the man sit up, and actually _hold him up_ as he drank a few long gulps from the bottle.

“You good?” Bucky asked, when Steve was finished and laying down again.

The man nodded. “I… I was an analyst,” he began to explain, though his breaths still wheezed as they he took them, making his voice stutter as he struggled to get a good amount of air. “Budgets, salaries, shit like that. St- Started noticin’ weird numbers. Figured som- somethin’ was goin’ on. Brought it up to the b-big boss, _Pierce,_ a-and he told me not to tell anyone else. Said he’d look into it. Couple days later… Asked me to come with him. S-Some meetin’ with government people, he told me. Said he wanted me to tell ‘em what I found. But- But he dumped me off on the cruiser. Said a murder could be solved. A man stranded on a dead ship, starved to death? No one’d look too deep into it.”

It was… Not a completely far-fetched story, Bucky _did_ have to admit that much, at least. Corruption and embezzlement was a crime as old as civilization, Bucky figured; it wasn’t hard to imagine that even SHIELD would have a few bad apples in the bunch. But _Pierce?_ He was _the_ guy, he was the SHIELD guy! He was the boss of the bosses, as far as Bucky understood it.

Honestly, though? Bucky didn’t really fucking care that much. His stance on SHIELD was usually _if he didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother him,_ and it _usually_ worked that way! SHIELD didn’t give a shit about _scrappers!_ As long as the scrappers didn’t get close to SHIELD vessels, they really did not give a single shit about scrappers. For all Bucky cared, SHIELD could _have_ Steve! Bucky didn’t know him, didn’t know if he was telling the truth. Hell, _Steve_ could be the bad guy in this whole situation, and Bucky would have no clue.

_But…_ That reward Steve promised did sound _appetizing._

“Alright, here’s how this is gonna go,” Bucky decided. “I’ll take you to Avenger Station. I’ll take you to your friends. If they don’t pay me, I shoot you, then I shoot them. Got it?”

Steve glared at him, but he seemed to realize that that was the best he was going to get.

“Got it.”

Bucky headed for the door again. “Alpine, seal the door behind me. He doesn’t leave the med bay.”

_“Copy that, Captain. Sealing med bay.”_

He headed for the helm. Guess he had to set a course for Avenger Station now…

**Author's Note:**

> feel like i might expand this into a series one day, but now is just not the time
> 
> one day, hopefully <3


End file.
